Eiffel Tower

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel
1889

Eiffel, an engineer-architect who designed bridges, exhibition buildings with exposed metal work, and even the interior armature for the Statue of Liberty, received this commission for the Universal Exhibition of 1889. (left image photographed by my mother, M. Mildred Miller)

Built of wrought iron, it is 984 feet tall, the tallest structure in the world until the Empire
State Building was erected several decades later. This metal skeletal structure of 15,000 metal parts has both rectilinear and curvilinear ornamentation in iron. (See below.)

The base

The tapered shaft rests on four legs which spring upward. These supports are oriented to the four points of the compass.